


A Day At The Office

by Rod



Series: Miami Knights [4]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV), Jake 2.0, Roswell (TV 1999)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Attempted Kidnapping, Gen, Supernatural-style demons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-16
Updated: 2020-02-25
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:06:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22745251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rod/pseuds/Rod
Summary: It's an average day for an alien training to be an NSA agent.  And if you believe that, I've got a bridge you just have to see...
Series: Miami Knights [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/919962
Kudos: 1





	1. Settling In

Being a secret agent, Michael Guerin was rapidly discovering, was nothing like the James Bond films. There were a lot more tests, for one thing, and fewer exotic death traps.

Somewhat to his surprise there hadn't been any testing of his powers, at least not yet. Oh, Doctor Diane had given him a medical check-up "for a baseline," done a double-take and redone her tests before accepting that his body just was that weird, but those had all been external checks. There had been no blood samples and only one cheek swab which still had Diane muttering about impossible biology. None of the things Michael had been expecting when he'd been practically drafted into the NSA and nothing that made him feel like a guinea pig. It was kind of unnerving.

In fact all his training and assessment so far was with firearms and unarmed combat. Michael didn't see the point, and told his trainer as much.

"Some day you'll need to defend yourself without using your powers," Kyle Duarte said unsympathetically. "It's happened to Jake more times than I care to remember."

"True," Jake Foley admitted, wrinkling his nose at the memories. "Pretty much immediately after Kyle first got me to shoot straight someone smuggled an EMP bomb into the building. I had to deal with them without any of my enhancements."

"An EMP bomb wouldn't affect me," Michael pointed out.

"Something will," Kyle said, and Michael hated that he already knew that was true. "Or you'll be in a situation where you absolutely do not want to break cover. Knowing how to hold a gun — hell, looking like you know how to hold a gun could be the difference between success and failure."

"I know how to hold a gun," Michael groused.

"Yeah, no," Jake disagreed. "Whatever that security firm taught you, it wasn't firearms proficiency." He smirked as he lounged up against the wall.

"Some moral support you are," Michael told him.

So Michael's 'orientation period' was filled with training he didn't want to go along with paperwork that nobody wanted. He also had to help Jake and a reluctant Kyle carve protective runes into every door lintel in the building, because apparently he even needed a cover with his co-workers.

"You're seriously telling them I'm a magician?" he asked.

"We're seriously telling them nothing," Kyle said. "When they go digging they'll find hints that you've been involved in things that don't have a rational explanation, and have an interest in mystical bullshit. Feel free to deny that, by the way. The more they have to work for the information, the more they'll believe it." He seemed amused at the idea of putting one over on his colleagues.

"So you don't trust your own agency with this?"

Jake and Kyle shared a look. "Michael, the President himself told Lou he didn't trust her superiors," Jake said seriously. "She doesn't report about you to anyone other than him."

Michael felt his jaw drop open. "The President knows about me?" he asked weakly. It wasn't a squeak.

"Somehow," Kyle said. "Lou isn't talking about it."

"At least he isn't telling her what to do," Jake said with more of his normal humour. "We'd all know about that."

Kyle turned back to his handiwork while Michael tried to process all that. He was important enough for the President of the United States to personally keep tabs on him. Him, Michael Guerin, not King Max. This was so far beyond weird as to be on another planet.

"Does this look right to you?" Kyle asked, as if he hadn't been the one making Michael memorise mystical symbols.

Jake looked over. "There's another crossbar on that last symbol," he said. "Come on, let's get this door finished, then we can go blow stuff up. That always puts you in a better mood."

* * *

Well now, wasn't this interesting? For the first time he was glad of his orders to infiltrate this wretched organisation. He had nothing but contempt for the humans here, who thought they knew so much when they knew practically nothing. He didn't even have to work at corrupting them. They came up with the most ludicrous excuses for their actions while earnestly insisting they were doing good. It was like the Inquisition all over again.

But this Jake Foley... Well, well, well. Whoever it was working on the NSA's higher ups had been keeping secrets. If he had even heard of something like this, he would have dropped everything to investigate. It sounded so close to his dream...

He'd had a taste before, that had been the cruel thing. He'd thought he had been so clever, bargaining with impossible conditions, but That Man had done the impossible like it was nothing. It had been glorious, but he couldn't hold it together, couldn't stop the panic that took all of them off the cliff. Even the farmer he'd ruined in the process turned out to be someone else's pet project. The bollocking he'd got just for coming to That Man's attention... no, cruel barely began to cover that whole episode.

Foley and his nanites could change all that. They had the potential, even he could tell that. He neither knew nor cared enough about the technology to have much grasp of the details, but he didn't need to. With the nanites he could control what had got out of hand before. He could have that glory and keep it.

Screw the rest of them, the Earth was his.


	2. Art Lessons

"Good morning, Diane," Jake said cheerily as he breezed into the lab ahead of Michael. "What unspeakable horrors lie in wait for us today?"

"Jake! Oh, is it that time already?" Diane Hughes took off her glasses and put them down on the huge old book she had been reading. She smiled more at Jake than at him, Michael noted, and put another tick in the 'They're dating' column of his mental scorecard. He had seen enough Awkward Nerd Moments between Max and Liz to be fairly sure that they wanted to be dating even if they weren't right now.

"You've only got us for an hour this morning," he said. Now that they had moved on to testing his powers instead of just talking about them, Diane usually needed to be reminded of the time. To his considerable surprise, Michael found he didn't mind all the testing; Diane treated him like a person, which made all the difference.

"Yeah, Lou wants us to observe when the FBI have their meeting with her," Jake said unenthusiastically. "I think she's testing our self-control." Michael grimaced too. He didn't like the idea of being in the same building as Special Division at all. They were going to try something, he was sure of it.

"What a coincidence," Diane said, nudging Jake to make him smile back. "I was planning on testing your fine control. Here." She turned the book around so Jake and Michael could see it more clearly. It was the Watchers' Big Book of Protective Stuff that they had been using to protect the office. Joy, Michael thought but didn't say.

"Some day you might need to create one of these symbols in a hurry," Diane continued, "so I thought we could try out different ways of doing it. We can start with this one and see how it goes." She pointed to the Lesser Seal of Castranomen, 'that protects the soul against falling into the clutches of another.'

Michael looked at the symbol. It wasn't all that hard to replicate, he decided. He still wasn't a hundred percent convinced that demons weren't actually aliens, but if these symbols had some kind of effect on their powers he might as well learn how to get them right. It would help his cover. "So what, you want us to practice drawing it?" he asked.

"Maybe some of the others," Diane replied. "This one I thought you could make a bit more directly." She pulled out a tray containing a selection of lengths of wire and other metal scrap. Michael was moderately certain some of it used to be a coathanger.

"You want me to bend this?" he asked sceptically, holding up a discoloured teaspoon.

Diane flushed. "You never know what you might have to work with," she said.

Michael was pretty sure he looked as unconvinced as he felt. "Kyle bet you couldn't get me to bend a spoon, didn't he?" he said. Diane flushed harder.

"I'm betting you want me to do something different," Jake said. He smiled fondly at Diane, who took the out with indecent haste.

"A tattoo," she said quickly.

Jake frowned. "Tattoos don't stick," he pointed out. "The nanites destroy the ink like any other foreign substance."

"Not if they make and position the ink," Diane told him. "I told you this would test your fine control, didn't I?"

Michael tuned out the geek flirting and studied the diagram. He had the easy task this time, he figured. Molecular manipulation was what his powers were basically, and they didn't get more basic than warping stuff. He selected a longish piece of stout wire and concentrated. All he had to do was bend something bendy into the right shape. Piece of cake.

Ten minutes later he looked down at the twisted metal and had to admit that maybe it wasn't so easy.

"Having trouble?" Diane asked.

"Every time I work on one part, the rest of it springs out of shape," Michael admitted.

"Can you keep your powers down to just a tiny portion of the wire?"

"That's what I'm trying to do," Michael said a fair bit more snippily than he intended. "I just end up putting pressure on other parts of it."

"Ow, ow, ow," Jake cried suddenly. There was a red welt on his forearm., quickly fading as Michael looked over. "Sorry," Jake said sheepishly, "I forgot to turn the pain receptors off first."

Diane sighed, and Michael shook his head and smiled. Sometimes Jake reminded him so badly of high school, of Alex and his half-baked ideas... Of Tess's betrayal. Yeah, okay, maybe that was something he didn't want to be reminded of after all.

"Maybe you should try coming at it the other way round," Diane suggested to him. "Instead of focusing down, keep the whole shape in mind. Change all of it at once. Do you think you can do that?"

Michael considered it. "Maybe," he said cautiously. He had managed to change his whole shape once, after all. He wasn't any too clear on how he had done it, but he definitely hadn't thought about his body bit by bit. Shaping the wire all at once ought to be easier than that, right?

Easier didn't mean easy, it turned out. Michael could get the shape roughly right easily enough, but that wasn't good enough for Diane. It took long minutes of tweaking and comparing before she was happy that he had replicated the diagram exactly. "Now do it again," she said, handing him the teaspoon.

Michael put it back and picked out some more wire. He wasn't falling for that one.

Diane coughed in embarrassment and turned to where Jake was using his forearm as an Etch-a-Sketch. "No, the cross line curls up there," she said, tapping the mistake with her finger. Jake jumped, causing Diane to jump and pull her hand back. Michael rolled his eyes when they smiled weakly at each other and resigned himself to blocking them out for the next half hour.

By the end of their session, he had half a dozen good copies of the seal made from a variety of bits and pieces, not including the teaspoon, and it only took him a few seconds to shape wire right. He was particularly proud of the one he made from an old key; the alloy had resisted manipulation, which paradoxically meant that Michael could be much more precise about the angles and edges. "I'm keeping this one," he said, slipping it into his shirt pocket.

"You should keep the one on your upper arm," Diane told Jake.

"Really?" The other 'tattoos' visible on Jake's now shirtless body were already fading. "You think it looks good?"

Diane visibly forced her gaze up to Jake's face. "I think you executed it perfectly without being able to see," she said, flustered. She really liked it on Jake, Michael translated. From his grin, Jake had the same thought.

Well, it was on his head when Lou found out.

* * *

He considered taking Deputy Director Beckett. Oh, not in the meeting, that would raise far too many questions. Later, perhaps. She was brusque and unsympathetic, her people would never know the difference.

But no, eye on the prize. He needed Foley if he was going to achieve his dreams. Foley would be nearby, the analysts were sure of that much. Well, they were sure that Guerin would be nearby, Beckett would want him to watch what Special Division said and did. They were counting on that, and only waiting on confirmation to make their move. More to the point as far as he was concerned, Foley would be with Guerin. They wouldn't want to leave their precious alien unguarded.

There was always the chance that Guerin would be watching by camera from too far away, given the NSA's love of technology. That would be a disappointment for the FBI, but he didn't care. Now he was in their building he could get to Foley eventually. He didn't care if he left a trail of bodies doing it; even afterwards the NSA wouldn't understand what had happened to them. And once he had Foley...

He couldn't wait for the damned infiltration team to report in.


	3. Unwelcome Visitors

"I don't like this," Kyle announced.

Michael looked at the FBI on the wall-sized monitor again. Other than their existence and the fact that they were talking to his boss at all, he couldn't see anything wrong.

"They aren't doing anything," Jake protested, sounding very much like Michael felt.

"Exactly," Kyle said. "They've been making variations on the same threatening noises for the last five minutes. They're stalling."

"Why do that?" Jake asked. Kyle gave him a look. "Oh, because they have something else going on, duh."

"In the building or in our systems?" Michael asked.

"Or just in something we're supposed to be watching," Kyle said.

"None of those sound good," Jake said. "Should we go to Yellow Alert?"

"It's Condition Beta," Kyle said firmly, "but yes. We should be actively looking for intruders now."

"Yup, Yellow Alert," Jake muttered as Kyle reached for the internal comms terminal. He and Michael shared a smile.

Michael went back to studying the FBI men. They were both burly, not that that would intimidate Lou, but beyond that they couldn't be more different. Agent Jackson was blond and blue-eyed, the image of the All-American Boy. The sort of person Michael had imagined Kyle Valenti growing into before he actually got to know the guy. Agent Stevens on the other hand was black and grim-looking, like he was channelling Samuel L Jackson's badass characters. He couldn't look more cliched if he tried, Michael decided.

He was watching carefully, so Michael noticed when both men stiffened slightly. "I think whatever they were waiting for is ready," he said.

The monitor promptly died, and Jake sagged. "EMP bomb," he said.

"Shit, the servers," Michael realised. Special Division were actually prepared to do that much damage to them. The backup servers elsewhere would be fine, but the control centre probably couldn't access them until a bunch of kit rebooted. He hoped nothing critical had been going down. "How the hell did they smuggle that in?" he asked.

"Someone else's problem," Kyle said. "We need to get you somewhere more secure pronto."

"What? But—"

"They're after you, Michael," Kyle said sternly. "They're prepared to try it here, and they know enough to disable Jake. They'll be expecting to deal with you too. Let's not give them the opportunity."

He was right, damn it. Michael was thoroughly sick of being the damsel in distress, but it made sense not to go up against people who were ready for him. "Lead on," he said grumpily.

Kyle flashed him a brief smile before drawing his gun and opening the door. He looked both ways before stepping out and gesturing to the others. Michael was at the door, his own gun out, when Kyle suddenly jerked as if he'd been struck. Moments later he was tumbling through the air.

"What the hell?" Michael shouted. He had a forcefield across the doorway practically by reflex. He wasn't sure how much good it would do against whatever had taken Kyle down, but at least it would give them some time.

There was a ripple in the air in front of the doorway and Michael saw a shockwave explode through his forcefield as it if wasn't there. He had no time to brace, but there wasn't a physical impact anyway. Pain ripped through his body, and his forcefield sputtered and died.

"Michael," Jake shouted. He put a couple of shots through the doorway hopefully.

Michael wasted precious seconds trying to put the forcefield back up. Nothing happened; his powers didn't respond. "Something's suppressing my powers," he said unsteadily, raising his gun. He wasn't going to panic damn it, Kyle had trained him for this. He should have paid more attention.

Something struck his wrist, forcing him to drop his gun. Something he couldn't see. "What the—" he managed to get out before he was struck on the jaw and went down. Muzzily he managed to lift his head. There was an electric sizzling and Jake convulsed and dropped.

"Huh," he heard a woman's voice say, "I thought he'd be tougher."

Then it all went black.

* * *

It had been child's play to separate himself from Agent Stevens. Once Agent Ross had blinded the NSA, they had tranked Beckett before she could react and triggered the fire alarm. The corridors had been full of confused people who weren't field agents and didn't know enough to be suspicious. Despite the fact that they were theoretically headed for the same point to assist Ross, it had been the easiest thing in the world to let the cattle get between them and head off down a side corridor while Stevens was distracted. He, after all, had no intention of assisting Ross with anything.

He headed for where the Trithium Amplification Generator had been activated, a pretty unmistakable feeling. If the humans actually knew what they were doing with it, they might almost be dangerous. Mostly to themselves, but no one wanted that kind of inconvenience. Regardless, it almost certainly indicated where Foley had been. Ross wouldn't have left him conscious, and wouldn't have cared if she hadn't left him alive. He'd rather the former, but he was prepared for the latter.

Luckily Foley was staggering to his feet as he found the room. "Oh good, you're alive," he said. "That'll make this easier." Giving no more warning than that, he leapt out of Jackson.

And bounced. Foley had an anti-possession talisman of some kind. He spared a moment to curse whoever had first discovered such a thing — probably due to heavenly intervention, the mud monkeys couldn't have imagined something like that for themselves. Then he leapt back into Jackson before the idiot could realise he had been free.

"That's not good," Foley said, and came at him blindingly quickly. For a human.

He blocked the blow and flexed his power to pin Foley to the wall. When Foley started pushing against the wall to get away, he whipped out the short-range EM gun Special Division had developed for tackling Foley. "Now, now," he said sardonically as those precious nanites shut down again. "Anyone would think you didn't like me."

"The black eyes don't do you any favours," Foley snarked back. "What do you want with Michael?"

"Nothing. Special Division's obsession with the alien was just a convenient way to get to you." Close enough for government work. He pulled the small medical kit out of his pocket. "Such a shame you're all warded up. Still, if I can't have your body, I can at least take samples." He paused and smiled. "The more you struggle, the more this will hurt."

With his nanites inactive, Foley couldn't do more than twitch as he drew a blood sample. The nanites were at least distributed fairly evenly through Foley's body so he was guaranteed to get some. Ideally he would have taken a full transfusion from Foley, but keeping the man docile for long enough was too problematic. He would make do with what he had.

"Excellent," he said, examining the full vial of Foley's blood. He loaded it into a hypo and injected it into Jackson's body. No sense in wasting time, and if the tiny machines made a mess of the body as they replicated, he could cope.

"Oh shit," Foley whispered. "No, wait. A nanite-powered demon doesn't make sense. You can't take them with you when you jump bodies."

"Can't I now?" Well of course he couldn't, but he knew better than to explain his plan. Foley overlooked the fact that he already had supernatural strength, speed and durability, he would have no chance of guessing the real reason.

Foley's disgustingly mortal side-kick made his presence known by shooting Jackson's body. He turned to deal with the nuisance permanently, but that was the moment the nanites kicked back into life. It startled him for a second, which was enough for Foley to break out backwards through the wall. Duarte shot him again.

"You are a pest," he said irritably. He grabbed Duarte by the gun arm, but before he could rip the insect's head off a peculiar feeling overtook him. It took a moment for him to realise what it was. The nanites; Foley was using his stolen nanites against him.

It wasn't more than an inconvenience. He cared as little for the physical damage the nanites were doing as for the bullets he had taken, and he could repair both if he cared enough. That would tip his hand, though, until he had enough experience to wrest control from Foley. Better to retreat now he had what he wanted, perhaps even let them think they had driven him off and get overconfident.

"I don't need you any more," he growled at Foley. He threw Duarte at him, following up with a wave of force that half-buried the pair in debris. Then he turned and headed out of the building, cheerfully blasting through any walls and agents in his way rather than risking the nanites to a more magical means of travel.

There was no point in being subtle now he had what he wanted.


	4. Exit Strategy

"...leave it with me when you go," Michael heard as he groped his way to consciousness. He was moving... upside down... oh, right, he was being carried. In a fireman's lift, great. His training cut in quickly; he could practically hear Kyle hissing "Stay limp," in his ear, which did not actually help him stay limp. What he did seemed to be good enough, or maybe the bastard carrying him just wasn't paying attention. The bastard whose ass he was going to fry once he figured out what was going on.

OK, so he probably wasn't going to do that. He didn't want to kill the guy unnecessarily, and he hadn't figured out how to do less damage with his 'energy bolts' as Jake insisted on calling them.

He missed the reply, vaguely aware of a woman's voice, but he definitely noticed his captor snap back at her. "And I'm not risking him coming round and frying me," Mr Not Quite So Stupid said. "We don't know how long that thing knocks his powers out for." He sighed. "This would have been so much easier if you'd injected him with the neuroblockers."

"It was a lucky shot," the woman said sulkily.

"Maybe this time you'll learn not to stand in front of guns," the man shot back. From the voice Michael thought it was Agent Stevens. "You're invisible, Marcie, not bullet-proof. You were lucky the medical kit took the shot instead of you."

Invisible. Shit, that changed things. Michael wasn't sure how he'd fight someone invisible with his powers. Fighting them without? He needed a plan.

"Jackson will show up," the woman, Marcie, said more softly. "I swear that man is half cockroach."

"He'd fucking better," Stevens swore. "Now hand it over and go do your thing. Once you've secured us a route we're moving out, with or without him."

"Listen to you, Agent Take Charge," Marcie said. She sounded amused.

"I'm still your superior, Agent Ross," Stevens replied. "Now get."

There was movement, and Michael risked sneaking a look through slitted eyes. He caught an indistinct glimpse of something weird and pentagonal as Stevens' hand dropped low enough for him to see. It took him a long moment to place it, and when he did his blood ran cold.

It had a fancy name because Antarians couldn't help themselves, but Michael remembered it as the thing that shut their powers down. The FBI must have heard about it somehow, and of course they would get hold of it once they knew about it. That must have been what Invisible Woman had zapped him with. Getting it away from Stevens was a priority. Michael had no compunctions about destroying it — he wasn't about to get weepy over losing a precious connection to Antar — but he had a sneaking suspicion that it would be resistant to his powers.

Whatever, he needed to wait until Stevens was good and alone before he made his move. Two minutes, Michael reckoned. Two minutes would be long enough for Very Special Agent Marcie to get far enough away she couldn't interfere. Two minutes, and all he could do was hang here pretending to be unconscious.

"Freeze!"

Shit, Michael thought, Jake had arrived way too soon. No way was the invisible agent out of earshot yet, and Stevens was reaching into the pocket Jake couldn't see. Quickly Michael jerked himself up and kicked Stevens in the stomach. Steven folded up nicely with an "Oof", dropping Michael on the floor. Michael counted it a win despite the new bruises. Stevens even obligingly dropped the alien device.

Jake staggered and straightened up. "Everyone always assumes I'm useless without the nanites," he told Stevens grimly. "I'm still a trained agent with a gun on you. Michael, frisk him."

Michael did so, removing Stevens' gun and what must have been a miniature EMP generator. He kicked the alien power suppressor aside for good measure. Much as he wanted to rag on Jake for riffing off every cop show ever, now was not the time. "His partner's invisible," he said instead, "and she's nearby."

Jake got that look Michael had seen so many times on Max's face, when he wanted to swear but was too polite to let rip. "Can you block the corridor?"

Michael reached into himself and tried to dredge up a forcefield. The air sparkled, but it didn't stay up. "Not quite yet," he said. "Give me another few seconds." He tried again. The forcefield didn't last any longer, but this time he felt it push against something. He was still turning, levelling Stevens' gun when Jake fired. Michael saw shards of alien metal clatter to the floor and let go of a breath he hadn't realised he had been holding.

The was a soft "Oh" and a red smudge appeared in the air. Ross must have been standing behind the device when she had picked it up, and Jake's bullet had hit her too.

"I don't feel so good, Nick," a woman's voice said from around what was clearly now a bloodstain. Michael could see a vague outline of her in the air, like the edge of a soap bubble. The blood was high on her chest, not a good sign.

"Marcie!" Stevens moved towards Ross as she slumped to the ground. Michael got out of his way. He kept his gun trained on the FBI agents, not completely convinced this wasn't some sort of trick.

"What about the other one?" he asked Jake quietly. "Agent Jackson?"

"Possessed by a demon, would you believe?" Jake said just as quietly. "Good thing I kept that tattoo."

"Kyle?"

"Broken arm. I had to threaten to knock him out to stop him coming along."

Agent Stevens looked up at them. "Save her," he demanded. "You aliens can heal. Heal her."

"That's Max's thing," Michael objected. "And I'd need to make eye contact with her." Ross was a translucent shape on the floor, but Michael would have been lying if he said he could see her eyes.

"Shouldn'a stood in front a the gun," Ross slurred. Stevens looked down at her and kind of wilted. Michael found himself feeling for the guy. The agents had knocked him out and kidnapped him, but they were still people much as he wanted to hate them. He looked at Jake.

"Your call," Jake told him. "What sort of agent do you want to be?"

"Fuck it," Michael snarled. He handed his gun to Jake, nudged Stevens aside and knelt beside Ross. Apparently he was going to be the sort of agent who couldn't leave well enough alone. "Hey," he said to Ross, "I don't know if this'll work but I need you to look in my eyes." He reached deep for his powers and tried to make contact.

Healing came hard for him at the best of times, and this was not the best of times. His powers were still mostly on the fritz and eye contact was questionable. Michael felt a flash of crushing loneliness and tried to pour power through the connection only to have it fall apart on him. "Nearly," he muttered, trying to be encouraging and probably missing by a mile. "Keep going."

"Oh I am."

A flash of smugness was all the warning Michael got before pain erupted through his side. He convulsed, totally losing his grip on his powers, and suddenly he was flying through the air. He landed hard. What the hell, he tried to say, but all that came out was an indistinct moan.

"Marcie!" Stevens shouted. "You bastard, you killed her."

Michael got control of himself enough to roll on his side. He could see Stevens kneeling beside a fully visible young woman who had to be dead. A chunk of her chest where Michael had been trying to heal her was missing. "What h'p'ned," he managed to get out.

Jake shot him a concerned look but kept this gun trained on the FBI agents. "She tazed you," he said. "Then something kind of exploded." His powers had run wild, Michael thought, and shit, he had killed someone.

Michael rolled onto his other side and threw up.

By the time he had his stomach and the rest of his body back under control, the corridor was full of NSA agents taking custody of Stevens. Some of them were casting curious looks at Michael. Michael hated it.

"Hey," Jake said softly, squatting next to him. "Are you OK?"

"I'm..." Michael caught sight of Ross' body and wanted to throw up all over again. "Does it get easier?"

"God, I hope not," Jake said fervently. "I've had to kill four people. I really hope I don't have to kill a fifth, but you don't always get a choice."

"She was trying to kidnap me," Michael said dully. "Why do I feel so bad about it?"

"Because you're a good person," Jake replied, quietly intense. "You are. That's what is going to make you such a good agent, and never mind what anyone else says. You tried to save her."

"I should have tried harder."

"It wasn't your fault. If anything it was theirs, you know?" Jake reached out to grab Michael's shoulder. "Hey, look at me. You know it wasn't your fault. If she hadn't tried to take you down, you wouldn't have lost control. Heck, if they hadn't EMP-bombed me _again,_ I wouldn't have shot her in the first place."

Michael gave him a disbelieving look.

"I could have tracked her by her heartbeat," Jake explained. "I've done it before, stop looking at me like that."

From anyone else Michael would have written it off as bragging, but Jake wasn't like that. Michael was inclined to believe that he really had tracked someone by their heartbeat, and probably taken them in alive. Whereas Michael... Michael had killed someone he was trying to save. Even as a super agent he was second rate.

They were silent for a while, caught up in their own thoughts. As the chaos in the corridor calmed down and Stevens was lead away, Jake sighed. "Come on," he said, offering Michael a hand up. "We should get to Diane, she'll want to check us out."

One of the senior agents Michael didn't know straightened up and turned to them. "You're injured," he said to Michael. "You're going to Medical."

"Uh, no," Jake informed him. "Two reasons. First, Diane will kill me if I let anyone else do our physicals."

Michael nodded. If anyone who knew what they were doing gave him more than a quick check over, they'd know he wasn't human.

"Second," Jake continued, "they tranked Lou. No one with any sense will go to Medical until she's out of there."

Agent Uptight grimaced. "Dr Hughes it is," he agreed.

* * *

The nanites were rejecting Jackson's body. Well, that was inconvenient. He could hold it together and keep the nanites contained, but trying what he wanted would be risky without a stable base to work from.

Oh well. He would have had to ditch Jackson soon anyway, if only to throw the FBI and NSA off his trail. And the nanites should make disposing of the body easier.


	5. Epilogue

Getting called to Lou's office the moment she was declared fit for duty wasn't actually an improvement on seeing her in Medical. Michael didn't think so anyway. She was still in a foul mood, demanding to know how the FBI had managed to sneak so much equipment past what were supposed to be the most sophisticated detection systems in the country. She wasn't taking the news about their invisible agent well.

"Who the hell was this woman," she demanded, "and why didn't we know about her?"

"Stevens called her Marcie," Michael volunteered. He paused a moment, trying to remember the rest of their conversation. "Marcie Ross, that was it."

Jake typed at his laptop. "OK, I've got a number of possibles... filter the ones who are too old or too young... leaves us — Oh."

Lou scowled at him. "'Oh' is not a report," she said. "You have something?"

"Yeah," Jake stretched the word out like he was unwilling to admit it. "I have a birth record for a Marcia Jane Ross." He looked up at Lou. "Sunnydale, California."

"Oh," Lou said bitterly.

Michael squashed the urge to raise his hand. "Uh, why is Sunnydale significant?" he asked.

"Sunnydale is where Buffy and her friends went to school," Jake explained. "It was the active hellmouth, which is exactly what it sounds like, until the Slayers managed to close it a few years ago. Now it's mostly a crater. A lot of their records were still paper, so getting any more info is going to be hard."

"If it was easy it wouldn't be your job," Lou told him. "Talk to your friends in the Watchers, see what more you can get. What about the missing agent, Jackson?"

"Possessed by something," Jake said promptly.

"What?" Lou demanded.

"Something that looked like a black cloud when it came out of him. Some sort of demon I guess. I was lucky Diane had us practising anti-possession symbols and I still had one."

"It tried to possess you?" Michael asked. It sounded like some kind of intelligent parasite.

Jake nodded. "Would have walked out of here wearing me like a suit," he said grimly. "It had to settle for stealing some nanites. I don't understand why."

"He stole a sample?" Lou demanded. Michael held as still as he could; if he'd thought she was angry before, she was positively volcanic now. "The FBI have a sample of our nanites?"

"It didn't care about the FBI," Jake replied. He grimaced. "It wanted the nanites for itself, but that doesn't make sense. The only thing it gets out of them is interfacing with electronics, and you need to know what you're doing to make much use of that. Plus if it switches bodies, it'll leave the nanites behind."

Lou frowned. "You're talking like the enhanced strength and speed don't matter," she said.

"Lou, it's a demon. It's already got enhanced strength, speed and whatever else it wants."

"We'll figure that out later," Lou said, sitting back. "Find out everything there is to know about Ross and Stevens. I want all the ammunition we've got when I go shout at the FBI."

Jake looked like he wanted to argue, which would have been really stupid idea right then. Fortunately there was a knock on the door before he could put his foot in it.

Kyle came in at Lou's growl, his arm in a sling and looking tired. "You should be in bed," Lou told him, unimpressed.

"Pot, meet kettle," Jake muttered.

Kyle ignored the byplay and handed her a piece of paper. "I thought you should see this straight away," he said.

Lou read quickly. "That's all I need," she spat.

"What?" Jake asked.

Kyle grimaced some more. "While the FBI were running around here, Dumont escaped from prison," he said.

"What are the chances that's a coincidence?" Jake asked. He too looked grim.

"No bet," Kyle said.

Michael felt distinctly out of the loop. "Who is Dumont and why are we worried?" he asked.

"He's my nemesis," Jake told him. "A computer genius and criminal mastermind. Charming as hell when he wants to be, too. If he's escaped, he's got something planned and it'll be bad." He sighed. "At least this time he wasn't in our custody."

"He's still loose," Lou snapped, "and it's our job to bring him back in."

"If he's with the FBI, that's not going to be easy," Michael pointed out.

"It's not going to be easy anyway," Kyle said morosely.

Lou sat upright and glared at them. "Kyle, coordinate the search for Dumont," she ordered. "You can have Jake and Michael once they've completed their current tasks."

Jake and Michael both stood, but Jake paused. "Tasks, plural?" he asked.

"NORAD are getting insistent about that interview."

* * *

Dumont sat still as his 'rescuers' took off the blindfold. He kept a nervous but grateful smile on his face, but inwardly he was fuming. He had plans in motion; he almost had Director Warner eating out of his hand, and with her came everything he wanted from the NSA. For those plans he needed to look harmless, safely imprisoned away from any computers, as if those were his only weapon. Being broken out of jail was really inconvenient.

The room he found himself in was comfortably but plainly furnished. There was enough computer kit to make his fingers itch, but no windows. And the person seated across the desk from him... "I suppose I should thank you for breaking me out of incarceration," he said. His benefactor would recognise that he knew he had just swapped one prison for another.

"No thanks are necessary," the man said pleasantly. "I admit I wouldn't normally go to such lengths to extend a job offer, but you are something of a special case, Mr Flynn."

Dumont raised an eyebrow. He wasn't the least bit surprised that his prospective employer had done his homework, but the man must have something specific in mind. "I'm sure there must be easier ways to hire a computer expert," he said self-deprecatingly.

"But none as motivated as yourself. If you do your job to the best of your abilities, you will have the things you most desire. And you will have them much sooner than you would on your own."

Dumont pretended to consider this. "My heart's desire might be harder to obtain than you think," he said mildly.

"Let's not beat around bush," his captor said with a display of frankness that would have taken in anyone less cynical. "You want the NSA's nanite research and Agent Jake Foley."

Dumont kept his face impassive by sheer force of will. His interest in the nanites was trivial to discover, but the other man had spoken Jake's name with careful precision, as if he knew exactly how fascinating and challenging Dumont found the man. As if Jake was more important than the nanites.

"And you want the nanites too," he said as he considered this. It was a weak play, but it would be expected at some point.

"A pleasant side benefit," the man said, smiling easily, "but no. I want Foley's new partner, Michael Guerin. Alas, the people who should be dealing with him and his ilk are not competent to do their jobs."

"How very philanthropic of you," Dumont said drily.

The man threw back his head and laughed. "I am a businessman, Mr Flynn. I've never pretended otherwise. But in order for my business to flourish, there must be a world for it to flourish in."

Dumont was intrigued despite himself. "You think Guerin is that dangerous?" he asked. His alleged benefactor sat back and smiled.

"Tell me, what you do you know about aliens here on Earth?" he asked.

Half an hour later, Dumont gave up trying to sort the truth from the lies and manipulation in what he had been told. He was being deliberately drowned in information, all of it capable of distracting him for weeks. He was going to have to tread very, very carefully here. He didn't trust his new employer an inch, but he was going to have to be certain of the situation before he tried anything on his own account.

You didn't move against Lionel Luther until you were ready to kill him.

* * *

Weeks. It had taken him weeks to find a host that the nanites didn't reject. It was ridiculous how much of the country he had wondered around in that time, leaping from body to body as the effort of keeping each one together got too annoying. It was inconvenient having to reacquire the nanites from the corpse, but at least he could use them to dispose of old bodies without a trace.

That was done now. He had a body that wasn't falling apart on him, and he hadn't realised how tiring dealing with that had been until he wasn't doing it any more. After some celebratory sex (with a disappointing lack of transference of nanites, something to work on there) he had finally tried the experiment this had all been about.

It worked. He was possessing the nanites now. The teenager whose body he was using wasn't locked out of his own mind any more, but the boy still had exactly zero say in what that body was doing. It was delightfully cruel.

He would try out the next step tonight. It would be a family dinner that those who survived would never forget. The nanites weren't limited to being in just one place. He was going to have many bodies again, and this time he wasn't going to lose control. It was inevitable.

After all, his name was Legion.


End file.
